The recent emergence of electronic imaging gradually has allowed photographers increasingly sophisticated methods of both capturing and manipulating images. While electronic pictures have been under development since the 1960s, digital capture technology had long been too expensive for photographers to justify the cost—especially given the early concerns over image quality. But in recent years, demand has spurred a vast industry of digital camera manufacture which, in turn, has driven prices down and offered a range of cameras from consumer-friendly point-and-shoot models to professional imaging series. In a way, digital camera technology has been the great democratizer of photography, taking the best of point-and-shoot cameras and eliminating the expense and uncertainty of film. In addition, not since Polaroid has photography been so instantly gratifying. But digital cameras are much different from their analog predecessors, requiring the emergence and development of expensive electronic technology in specialized fields to help pave the road for consumer-end cameras.

Early Digital Imaging

Modern digital imaging owes a lot to the mid-century developments in electronic analog computing and the space program. In particular, digital imaging has its origin in the work of NASA in the 1960s, first to capture images on video tape and transform them using computers, then to develop the first digital cameras (to avoid signal loss during missions) that converted rays of light into electronic signals—the first deep space image exploration. Like many modern-day technologies, NASA developments worked their way into other industries and specialized fields, from medicine to the military to archeology (Rosenblum 2007). Innovation in television production, particularly the use of electronic video tape, also fed the still camera industry’s exploration of electronic imagery. In 1969, George Smith and Willard Boyle were experimenting with computer memory chips for Bell Labs when they developed the first charge-coupled device (CCD), now extensively used in digital imaging. A CCD is a sensitive integrated circuit for storing image signals based on the color spectrum (Regan 1999).

In the 1970s—on the cusp of the digital revolution—Kodak, Canon, and RCA were among the pioneer researching the conversion of light into digital images. One early instance of electronic imaging that spurred discussion on the future of photography was Emory Kristof’s use of an electronic camera to photography underwater life for National Geographic (Dunleavy 2006). When computers began implementing digital technology in the late 1970s, images began using tiny cells of tone and color called pixels, a computer term that is short for the words “picture elements” and describes the thousands to millions of individual dots of light that produce digital images (Milburn 2000). The resolution of an image is determined by pixel density—the greater the density of pixels, the more memory the images required to process. So as computers evolved to process greater amounts of information, so too did image resolution increase.

Sony’s 1981 release of the Mavica (Magnetic Video Camera) helped mark the dawn of electronic photojournalism. The Associated Press also contributed to the revolution with its “high-speed digital photo transmission and receiver system,” a kind of electronic darkroom that converted images into bytes and significantly sped up the news imaging process (Dunleavy 2006). Also in the 1980s, microchips and integrated circuitry evolved to allow computers to become both faster and more affordable, within reach of virtually anyone and, as a result, digital imaging gradually became accessible to the general public—though it would be a number of years before digital capturing technology would catch up with computer manipulation technology.

In other words, scanning of analog images to convert them to digital files initially provided photographers with the means to digitally manipulate images using computers, particularly with the emergence of advanced, multitasking software. Indeed, as late as the early 1990s, affordable digital capturing devices simply were not available. But as early as 1987, “the expansion of color capabilities allowed users a choice of over 16 million colors,” so scanning technology and digital manipulation software provided the first playing ground for digital enthusiasts (Rosenblum 2007).

The Evolution of Digital Cameras

A film-free camera was patented as early as 1972 by Texas Instruments, but Kodak researcher Steve J. Sasson, built what was to become the first true digital camera in the middle of the 1970s. Weighing over eight pounds, Sasson’s device used a number of complex circuit boards to capture one image onto a cassette—taking over twenty seconds (Rosenblum 2007). Kodak released its first megapixel sensor in 1986, a predecessor to its digital camera system (DCS) of the early 1990s. The sensor produced an image from which a good quality 5x7 print could be made. The DCS-100 used the best of available film camera technology, Nikon’s professional F-3 series, and equipped it with a Kodak 1.3 megapixel sensor and a 200 MB hard drive—all for about $13,000. Early 1+ megapixel cameras pointed to the potential for digital imaging but were often prohibitively expensive, slow in image processing, and lacking in the range of image resolution needed by many professional photographers.

Modern Digital Cameras

In the last few years, digital cameras have achieved the range of functionality of their film predecessors, and many believe that they have far surpassed them, as well. Not only have affordable digital single lens reflex (SLR) cameras such as Canon’s Rebel series brought high quality photography to the masses, but serious upscale SLRs produced by many of the major reputable film camera companies emerged to fully legitimize digital photography for professional photographers. The Digital Rebel SLR emerged in 2003 with 6.3 megapixels and interchangeable lens, the latter being a key feature for serious photographers. Nikon followed suit the next year with the D70, replacing the more expensive, fewer-featured D100. Soon Olympus, Pentax, and others offered affordable consumer cameras that helped spur the professional digital imaging revolution.

Modern digital cameras use designations such as dynamic range and megapixels to describe the maximum resolution the camera can record images at. A megapixel is one million pixels and, technically speaking, the greater the megapixels, the higher the image resolution—though one New York Times author has a caution for consumers: increased megapixels also translates into increased hard drive space, while “more densely packed pixels on a sensor chip means more heat, which can introduce speckles into low-light shots” (Pogue 2007). Dynamic range (range between brightest and darkest pixels represented in an image), among other factors such as bit depth and density, are affected by both camera chip technology and software, since images are often dealt with in the digital realm using image compression algorithms (Milburn 2000). In the end, many other factors also contribute to good photographs, and while technology will advance, every new model of digital camera does not immediately render older models obsolete (Pogue 2007).

The Motion Picture Industry

Since the evolution of digital camera owes something to the television industry, it is worth noting that the medium of the motion picture has also undergone a profound transformation in the last 25 years that coincides with and lends to digital image technology at large. Like still imaging, professionals in the movie industry were hesitant to make the move into digital movie making, but constantly improving technology combined with the vastly reduced cost of digital film to gradually introduce digital technology into the hands of most professionals—whether for digital films or films that have been touched by digital technologies.

An early touchstone in digital film-making was Lucasfilm, Ltd.’s 1979 move to begin research on the development of special effects for their films. The next year, “Steve Job’s Pixar and George Lucus’ Industrial Light and Magic emerge[d] as the most innovative producers of digital imaging for motion pictures” (Rodowick 2007). In the 1980s, nonlinear editing emerge to allow filmmakers to begin using computers to edit their films digitally, one of the earliest widely accepted digital tools in the movie industry. In the same decade, cameras were developed that provided digital resolution close to that of 35mm film, an industry film standard. Through the 1990s, computer-generated imagery (CGI, or just CG for computer graphics, both in movies and the video game industry) became increasingly sophisticated, rendering “‘photographically’ believable synthesized images” (Rodowick 2007).

The Ubiquitous Camera

In the last several years, the cost of consumer digital camera has dropped even as the quality has increased. Each successive generation of cameras has come equipped with a greater array of digital functions, improved optics, and higher image resolution. Digital cameras are available across every price range, and for every level of experience or intent. Yet perhaps the most intriguing application of the digital camera, that has precedent in classic spy films and television, is the cell phone camera. Not only has the technology spurred philosophical inquiries about the nature of photography, but professional photojournalism is being threatened by amateur digital imaging, as cell phones with digital cameras have become seemingly ubiquitous, with ever-improving resolution. Current trends in news media outlets invariably include amateur imaging and documenting to cover a broader range of stories. In her World History of Photography, Naomi Rosenblum points to an incredible example, when a picture taken on a cell phone of Saddam Hussein’s hanging was almost immediately picked up and spread across the world via the Internet (Rosenblum 2007). But this trend is true of all digital imaging, generally speaking. Digital technology has allowed for the mass editing and reproduction of images throughout the digital world, from news outlets, to stock photography agencies, to digital image forums such as personal blogs, Facebook, and MySpace or photo-sharing sites such as Picasa and Flickr.

In 2007, Michelle Bates published a book called Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity. While at first glance plastic cameras seem like a technological regression, Bates suggests this “reverse technology…has the power to bring people together, almost the opposite of the often competitive world of photography.” Plastic cameras have experienced a rebirth in recent years among photographers who appreciate the basic, photographic fundamentals of their simple mechanics. Inexpensive, all-manual plastic film cameras stand in stark contrast to “this climate of…more megapixels and more complexity” (Bates 2007).

The book occupies a peculiar slot among the dozens of how-to manuals that are continuously published every year on digital photography, but nevertheless highlights a couple of interesting points. On the one hand, the digital revolution wants to suggest that film is a thing of the past, and Plastic Cameras begs to differ. On the other hand, whether shooting with an $8000 16-megapixel professional digital camera or a $25 “toy,” photographers are all participating in something, vocationally or avocationally, that rests upon human intelligence and technological innovation in pictorial representation. Either way, the future of photography—forever grounded in its humble origins—seems limitless.

-- Posted October 4, 2008

References

Bates, Michelle. 2007. Plastic Camera: Toying with Creativity. Burlington, MA; Focal Press.

Dunleavy, Dennis. “A Bird’s View of History: The Digital Camera and the Ever-Changing Landscape of Photojournalism.” The Digital Journalist.org. February, 2006. Accessed: August 26, 2008.

Milburn, Ken. 2000. Digital Photography Bible. Foster City, CA: IDG Books Worldwide, Inc.

Pogue, David. “Breaking the Myth of Megapixels.” New York Times. February 8, 2007. Accessed: August 26, 2008.

Regan, Patrick. “George Smith and Williard Boyle Win C&C Prize for Charge-Coupled Device.” September, 20 1999. Accessed: August 28, 2008.

Rodowick, D.N. 2007. The Virtual Life of Film. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.